Well you mentioned the playfields are all the same. There's obviously cosmetic changes. Are we getting into those? To the various different models? Yeah, it can do. Yeah, why not? Well, okay, well, the Collector's Edition has laser cut side rails and red powder coat armor, red sparkle, red, sorry, it's a very difficult word for me, gold ring displays, gold wire forms, the Sonic shooter rods, Invincy class, and an animated Sonic vs. Dr. Eggman topper, which is actually very cool. With the two characters moving across the full width of the back box to battle each other with a super wide interactive LCD screen behind them. So if Sonic starts running you see dust coming up or when he crashes into something or you see pieces falling off and all that kind of stuff. So it's very, very cool, very well integrated. And it also has the Game Changer QR code system from Harry Potter to set the difficulty level using the player camera. So if you have these QR codes you can instantly select whether you are a novice player or a more advanced player. And the game rules are just according. Yeah, it normally has three levels, I think. Yeah. The beginner, Standard, and Wizard, I think, are the three. Right. Yeah. So, well, there's also the special edition, which is finished in a sonic blue powder coat with a two-liter static illuminated topper. So that's basically a bunch of polycarbonate sheets. Yeah, yeah, two. Two layers of them. Yeah. With some lighting effects on it. Yeah. And it has to be said the game was very well received. Yeah. I think it came out very well in people's expectations. Obviously with a big title like Sonic, there's a lot of assets and a lot of different games out there, Which you can choose to set the game, but they chose one of those and I think that's probably, I think it was the Genesis version, and was it, I can't remember, it was Sega, Sonic Generations I think was the video game which they mostly based it on, but I think there were a few other games included in there as well. Which seems to give him the best selection of assets to use in the game. But we'll hear more about that later on when we speak to Steve and he can tell us himself. Right. So, I have to say, not being familiar with Sonic and so on, I did watch some gameplay of the Sonic the Hedgehog Pinball Machine. And based on that, I mean, basically, if we're comparing, we now have two, or this year, two Japanese sort of cartoon characters turned into a pinball machine, the other one being Pokemon, of course. If money would not be an issue and I had to choose between Pokemon and Sonic, it would be Handsome Sonic. Oh, I agree. Yes, having played Pokémon a bit, it's okay, but it doesn't really have the well factor to me, even in the limited edition version that Sonic does. I think Sonic's got far more in it. Right. Yeah, and of course, Pokémon's not even the current title at the moment either, with Transformers more than meets the eye being the current title from Stern at the time of recording. Which is also not... I've heard people are very enthusiastic about the game, but theme-wise it's not appealing to me at all. But then again the cartoon never was, so that explains a lot. Ditto, and the fact that there isn't anything that transforms in the game, I think, has been something that has been pointed out over and over again. Particularly when they said that they intended to have something transforming and they couldn't do it. Let's not get ahead of our topics in this PINcast. Yeah. Because first, and we already announced it, we had the opportunity to talk to Jack Guarnieri, the founder of Jersey Jack Pinball, and designer of the game Steve Ritchie. So, let's listen to what they have to say about Stern, Hedgehog Pinball. So, we're joined by not only Jersey founder Jack Guarnieri, but also veteran pinball designer and Hall of Famer, I should say, Steve Ritchie, who just released his latest game, Stern, the Hedgehog. Hello, Jack. Hello, Steve. Hello, guys. How are you doing? Hi guys, how are you doing? Doing well, thank you. Good to finally speak to you and congratulations on the launch of your new game. Thanks a lot. It must be a big relief to finally get the game out there. Yeah, it's a big relief and it's very nice to see that a lot of people are enjoying it already. That's so important. Yeah, that's one of the things that you've, as a company, you've taken on now to get the games out there early. either at launch or very shortly afterwards. I know that's something that Jack was very keen to do. Yeah, congratulations on that, Jack, as well, to get that many games out to distributors and locations as well right after launch. Yeah, it's something that I think is important. The more games that are out, the more people get to see it, the more people want it. You know, we're not forcing people to buy it, but a lot of them have bought them, which is very cool. Okay, so we probably should ask a few questions about the game then really, and might as well start with the Sonic franchise itself, which is obviously a well established part of the culture, popular culture, 35 year anniversary this year, and you launched it on the birthday of course of Sonic. So it was great, it was really good to work with Sega. Obviously they get people, they understand what great games are, and it was really a pleasure to work with them, the whole team. Our team and their team really meshed together very well, and it was just a wonderful experience. The Sonic franchise spans multiple generations of games and across multiple gaming platforms as well, and a movie too. So how did you decide which particular part of the Sonic storyline arc to use for the Pimball? It's based on Sonic generations basically because the artwork is sharp and pretty in 3D. You know, there's a lot of people who would say, oh, why aren't you doing the pixelated images of the 90s? And it's like, I don't know, it's not pretty. I don't want it on the pinball machine. Although we do some pixelated images on our new little ring displays. There's five of them on each game. Yeah, they're very impressive. It seems like a sort of a natural evolution from the display you had on the front of the piano for Elton John. Yeah, definitely. It's very similar technology. Okay. Well, I'll be honest and say I've never played Sonic video games before, so I don't have the background that a lot of potential buyers and players will have. So were you familiar with the Sonic games, Steve, before you started working on this game? Well, I played Sonic with my son, I mean, a long, long time ago. In the 90s, we had a Sega Genesis system and, you know, we played it. But I had forgotten about it since then and I didn't focus on it. And I knew when I was going to get into it that I didn't know anything about Sonic, not enough. So we had this programmer that we hired and he's like, it turns out he loves Sonic, he knows everything about it. And he educated us all about the history and how it goes. And then after experiencing that, we saw Sonic's attitude, which is really important. And, you know, how he looks, what he does, he does little dances. He's kind of a little ego, you know. It's interesting. And we fell into it with that young guy. His name is Taylor Snyder. He's been a great programmer. He didn't even know how to play a pinball when he came to us. But he learned how to play pinball and actually became a pretty good player. Anyway, he's been magnificent on the code too. He's just learning from Bill and Joe Katz and Bill Grupp, let me make that clear, and Duncan and others there and he's just sucked up everything and become a model. Yeah, I saw Taylor in the First Look video, which was released recently and yeah, seemed very personal and very knowledgeable about it. So, okay, you knew there was a Sonic the Hedgehog game. What were your immediate thoughts as to what had to be in it? Well, a lot of things. I mean, Sonic is fast. I'm just a guy, you know, I'm just a guy to do that. The pinball is the fastest that I've ever made. I think you're going to agree. It's beautiful because it never, and I love that, you keep making shots. Pinball doesn't stop either. I mean, you gotta, you know, you can stop the ball yourself, I guess, but, you know, that fast speed. It's about, Sonic needs to collect rings. You try to collect as many rings as you can, and it's really important to get through checkpoints so you can have boss battles against Dr. Eggman. And I mean, it is a it's a perfect vehicle for a pinball machine, just no question. And it's really a nice thing that a hell of a lot of people in the world are going to understand the dynamic instantly and how to play the game. And I, you know, Sonic's attitude is another thing, you know, he's kind of a wise ass. He's like, but he's like, he celebrates his little victories and it's, wow, it's about collecting emeralds and trying to become a supersonic. It's about working with his team of friends and a lot of other nuances, but those are probably the big ones. That's what this game is about. So we're there, well obviously, so we're talking about a game with an upper level, upper playthrough. That's not the first time that you did that. We've seen it with Black Knight, of course, and this time... Elvis, World Pocator. Yeah. It's funny, if I can inject something, it's funny, I want to inject something just for the information of the people out there. Some people are questioning the strength and durability of a polycarbonate playfield. We've got plenty of history. It's very cleanable, polishable, and it's extremely durable. Once in a while, if you're playing the game every day in many plays, it's a good idea to shape balls now and then, but you would do that on any new pinball machine to protect the finish on any playfield. It's not a worry. Historically, polycarbonate playfields have held up excellently and they don't fuck. And where that fogging up thing is coming from was early ACDC games. Here's what they did. They installed the polycarbonate in the playfield and then sanded it. They heated it up and it became foggy. And then they put hard coat on it and the fog stayed in there. So, you're not going to get any foggy playfields, you're not going to have problems with it. Keep it clean. Open it up once in a while, take a rag, clean it up. Non-abrasive, be careful. Use a microfiber cloth. Okay, that's all I wanted to say about that. Yes. And now we're talking about the upper playfield on Sonic. Right. Well, to your point, I think Zaria already in the early 80's proved that polycarbonate upper playfields weren't perfect for Pimball because, well, 40 years later and they're still very clear, those used on the Italian games back in the day. So I didn't see any issues with that. So for whatever it's worth. But yes, upper playing field and quite a lot of shots as well, Lonnie. Yeah, there's like nine shots. One of them is like into a gate now, but we left it there and we left the switch there so that in tournament play, you know, if you want to shorten the game, tournaments mean massive groups of great players that can play a pinball machine forever. So, of course, during a tournament, they set up the games to be much more difficult and less time consuming. So, one important thing to do would be to remove that gate so that people can either accidentally or on purpose shoot the ball back down to the lower play field via the left ramp. So, we put it in though, because we put the gate in for commercial play average people and you can't drain out that way anymore. So you make a drain between two flippers and the magic post in the middle. There's all kinds of shots up there. What I mean by that is shapes, there's orbits, there's two orbits, there's a loop, there's two ramp shots. One of them goes straight back down to the block where it pops back up onto your right flipper. It's not really as easy as it looks to make that shot and even harder is a ramp that goes under itself. It's up the back and then crosses over to the right. We call it the under and over ramp. And it's a fun shot. And there's also new targets. There's a dog more backhand. Right. There's also two targets that, well, it was my idea that somebody else's, other engineers, execution in that People have tried to make a target that just attaches to the playfield with nothing hanging down below. I couldn't afford to have that. So these are linear targets and they use these really nice little compressible dive springs that don't stack all their windings together. I mean, it allows a little excursion of this thing with great rebound and also a urethane face. So what you get is stand-up target play off of what normally would be a static, non-interesting target. So anyway, you can play them and it's nice. You hit them on the right side, they tend to go to the red bird. So, you know, it's a nice feature and I really like them and I'll use them again. There's a spinner up there and there's also lots of single LEDs and this is a color-based game. You look for colours, if you want to get checkpoints, look for a blue arrow. Well it actually came to reveal on the 23rd of June, of course Sonic's 35th birthday, it kind of felt as if some of the marketing material for the launch was being held back with the, there was a fast cutting promo video which was very nicely made but sort of left a lot of questions about what was actually in the game and how it all worked. Now we've got the first look video released and that seems to answer nearly all those questions, which was absolutely great. Okay, well, can I speak to that for just a moment? It's like, I think that the timing of everything was just fine. We got people talking, there's no question. Nothing was held back. We didn't even make a play video because Alex is supposed to come out. Have you seen the Alex Manning video? You must have. What do they call it? What's the name? Yeah, that's what I was saying. It answers so many of the questions. Yeah, right. And that was it. Everything was according to schedule and the controversy was created by the public, not us. There wasn't a non-release of the play video. We didn't have one and we didn't want one at that point. And so that's how it is. No, my point was really that once the game was launched there was still a huge number of questions about how various aspects of the play field and the features worked. I mean obviously you could see the artwork in the cabinet and see how beautiful the games looked, but you didn't really get a feel of what was on the play field at that time. And now you say maybe that's intentional that you create a certain amount of mystery and then you come in a few days later with the first look video which actually answers all those questions. If that was the way it was intended to be then fine. But it did lead to a lot of speculation and of course speculation often leads to people making incorrect assumptions about various aspects of the game. There are so many incorrect assumptions on Pinside. I looked at every one of them. I hate to admit it, but I did. But some people, I think they hope for things. And then if it is there, they're happy. If it isn't there, it's not. But there's always going to be, you know, everyone's going to have a personal, you know, interpretation of how a pinball from Sonic should look, should play. You know, and it's like, I wanted the game to be beautiful. All of us did, and 3D graphics is the way to go. And I would say that was the major concern, is that people wanted the old-style pixelated graphics. And I just, yeah, it didn't... Well, everybody, I've seen the game from their own personal experience. So people who grew up with the 16-bit version of it wanted it to be like that. People who came to it from the 32-bit and the 3D versions wanted it to be like that. So you know where you're going to satisfy everybody. Right. And then there's lots of newbies out there, people that are new to pinball, you know, wondering about a polycarbonate playfield, wondering how durable can it be? It's plastic. I mean, there's a huge history. So, you know, we're going to clarify that. Although if you play Black Knight Sword of Rage, World Popper or Elvis, I mean this is an old game and the playfields still look great. People just clean them now and now. Even if they leave them filthy, they can always be buffed out with a machine, you know, a nice buffing and take out every scratch that's in there. But I just, most games don't need it if you just clean it now and now. And it's pretty easy to clean the underside of the polycarbonate, is it? Yes, but that comes from the factory that manufactures the polycarbonate. It's called Polycarbonate AR, Abrasion Resistance. You can buy it without that coating, but we don't do that. We buy Polycarbonate AR, and that's what's on the game. Both sides protect it. So, one of the, well, obviously there's a lot of features on the game, But one that really caught my eye is the looping shot, which is, it seems to have, it's like a looping shot without anything leading up to it. I understand the ball is basically drawn in there by magnetics. Can you talk about how you designed that and how you came up with that? Sure, it looks like magic, but it's not the first time I've done sequenced magnets. I've done it quite a few times. It's just that you, you know, there was a different kind of magnet. This is a pancake magnet. It sits below the ramp. Because I didn't have room for the big, giant square ones that I would use in Star Wars or high speed. Okay, so it's like they're smaller magnets, but they're very powerful when the ball is close to them. And it's very much like a, you know, magnet save kind of coil, maybe a little stronger. So they're accelerated, there's optos, and Bill Rupp is the master of this operation, of operating the magnet ramp. It took us a long time to get the timing right, because before each magnet there's an opto. We have to time it so when the ball gets there it applies the most power until it in the center of the magnet and then no power So you can take you know take that momentum you gain and all of a sudden turn off the resistance as it tries to roll off the magnet So that a pretty intelligent explanation of how they work But trying the magic numbers was difficult and we got it. And then the other challenge, of course, was spin dash when you can take a ball coming in the ramp at any speed, fast, slow, it doesn't matter. It's got to stop the ball dead and you pound on the flippers to move a cursor on the backlass until you get into a green zone and then click, hit the action button. And that's brilliant. And then the ball drops from that second net back to the first, gets re-accelerated again past the second and past the third and jumps through the loop. It's an impressive device and works very well. Even more impressive when you just see a ball very gently enter that lane and then suddenly get whipped round the loop. Now, we're talking about features that are on the game. J.J. P has continued the trend that we did with Harry Potter, having three tier model with the arcade edition, the special and collector editions. In Harry Potter the three models all had identical playfield features. Is that the case here with Sonic? Exactly. Any model you pick has all the rules, all the components, every feature, every software block, all the graphics on the screen. Everything is identical from one model to the next. What we don't have is we don't have a shaker motor, we don't give you arc blades, We don't give you laser cut sidearm, we don't give you rad cowls. We remove those things and there's more. It doesn't come with this magnificent topper from the side.